Present Condition of Chile . 
383 
1877.1 
profess to make any attempt at a detailed description of 
Chile, but briefly classes it in the following three main 
divisions : — 
1. The large northern provinces of Atacama and Co- 
quimbo, the former of which is almost entirely made up of 
sandy deserts replete with mineral wealth. Its richest mines 
are to be found between Caldera and Mejillones de Bolivia, 
over a district covering 240 miles. Here are the silver mines 
of Puquios, Tres Puntas, Chanarcillo, Chimbero, and nu- 
merous others, and here, too, are the newly-discovered mines 
of La Florida. In this vast region every conceivable mine- 
ral produCt is found ; silver in abundance, and copper ; gold, 
iron, lead, nickel, and cobalt ; not to mention great pampas 
or stretches covered with nitrate of soda, rock-salt, and 
borax, these latter being of recent discovery, and when 
analysed found to contain a large proportion of iodine. 
The great discoveries made at Caracoles — which, it may be 
well to note, is not in Chilean but in Bolivian territory- 
have somewhat diverted public attention from the mines of 
Atacama, but their wealth is none the less remarkable, and 
it will suffice to say of them that in the thirty years period 
1843 to 1873 they yielded over 200,000,000 dollars’ worth of 
mineral produce, or an average annual yield of about 
£1,320,000. The southernmost portion of the province (the 
department of Freirina) bears a different aspeCt from the 
rest, for it contains the Vale of Huasco, which is renowned 
as one of the best-cultivated districts of Chile, but upon 
which the desert is now said to be encroaching at an alarming 
rate. The department is, above all, the greatest copper 
district in the world, and its rich mines of Carrizal are well 
known. The province of Coquimbo, too, abounds in this 
metal. 
2. The limits of the second, or central, division of Chile 
would be best marked by the Rio Illapel, or Choapa, and the 
Rio Itata. It comprises the provinces of Aconcagua, con- 
sidered the garden of Chile ; Santiago, with the large and 
handsome capital city of the same name ; Valparaiso, with 
the largest commercial emporium of the South Pacific ; 
Colcagua, Talca, Maule, and Nuble. It is the heart and 
soul of the whole country, containing its largest estates and 
most important towns, yielding its most abundant produce, 
and supporting the bulk of its population. It is distinctly 
agricultural, as opposed to the mining north and to the 
wilder and more pastoral south. 
3. The third, or austral, division of Chile, el Sur, com- 
mences — according to Mr. Rumbold — at the Rio Itata, and 
